The Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will visit Libya on Saturday, according to the Italian news agency Nova, which added that she will arrive in Libya at the head of a ministerial that includes the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, and the Minister of the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi.
Nova said that Meloni's visit will include various meetings with Libyan leaders, as she is expected to attend the signing of new oil agreements between Italy's Eni and the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC).
Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Al-Mangoush met in Tripoli with the Italian ambassador to Libya to discuss logistical preparations for the visit of the high-level delegation.
Meanwhile, NOC's Chairman Farhat Bengdara said the NOC would sign an agreement for gas exploration and production in the sea with Eni, adding in a TV interview that the deal requires eight billion dollars to produce 850 million cubic feet per day of gas from the Mediterranean, in order to benefit from the demand for North African gas in Europe due to the war in Ukraine.
The House of Representatives-designated Prime Minister Fathi Bashagha, who isn't yet recognized as an official head of government by the international community, said Meloni's visit to Tripoli was strange as she would be "visiting a government whose term of power ended".
Commenting on the signing of the agreement between Eni and NOC, Bashagha's government said that it would not abide by any agreements of "suspicious purpose and consequences," and that it would bear no legal or material effects of the agreement, vowing to resort to the judiciary in this regard.